I shaded my eyes with one hand,--yet under that shade I felt that Lucio watched me closely. Presently he spoke softly, just as if he had read my thoughts. "Considering the effect a perfectly innocent woman has on the mind of even an evil man, it's strange, isn't it that there are so few of them!" I did not answer. "In the present day," he went on--"there are a number of females clamouring like unnatural hens in a barn-yard about their 'rights' and 'wrongs.' Their greatest right, their highest privilege, is to guide and guard the souls of men. This, they for the most part, throw away as worthless. Aristocratic women, royal women even, hand over the care of their children to hired attendants and inferiors, and then are surprised and injured if those children turn out to be either fools or blackguards. If I were controller of the State, I would make it a law that every mother should be bound to nurse and guard her children herself as nature intended, unless prevented by ill-health, in which case she would have to get a couple of doctor's certificates to certify the fact. Otherwise, any woman refusing to comply with the law should be sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour. This would bring them to their senses. The idleness, wickedness, extravagance and selfishness of women, make men the boors and egotists they are." I looked up. "The devil is in the whole business;"--I said bitterly--"If women were good, men would have nothing to do with them. Look round you at what is called 'society'! How many men there are who deliberately choose tainted women for their wives, and leave the innocent uncared for! Take Mavis Clare----" "Oh, you were thinking of Mavis Clare, were you?" he rejoined, with a quick glance at me--"But she would be a difficult prize for any man to win. She does not seek to be married,--and she is not uncared for, since the whole world cares for her." "That is a sort of impersonal love;"--I answered--"It does not give her the protection such a woman needs, and ought to obtain." "Do you want to become her lover?" he asked with a slight smile--"I'm afraid you've no chance!" "I! Her lover! Good God!" I exclaimed, the blood rushing hotly to my face at the mere suggestion--"What a profane idea!" "You are right,--it _is_ profane;"--he agreed, still smiling--"It is as though I should propose your stealing the sacramental cup from a church, with just this difference,--you might succeed in running off with the cup because it is only the church's property, but you would never succeed in winning Mavis Clare, inasmuch as she belongs to God. You know what Milton says: